182 DR, H. CRUGER ON THE FECUNDATION OF ORCHIDS 
the process as absolutely uniform. It is necessarily continuous ; 
but it may have an undulatory character, and present a series of 
maxima and minima. The process of self-impregnation, which 
does not exclude, as far as I can see, slow modification, would 
indicate a period of minimum of transformation. 
T shall conclude this by a few observations on the morphology 
of the Orchid flower. The generally received opinion is that six 
stamens are partly contained in the column and partly in the 
labellum. Endlicher went so far as to propound that part of the 
style was also sunk in the labellum. I have for many years 
(‘ Linnea,’ xxii. 1849, translated by Henfrey in ‘Scientific Me- 
moirs,’ part ii.) been acquainted with facts which support this 
idea. Subsequent studies, however, have modified my views on 
the subject, based principally on the development of the flower. 
As long as the labellum of the Orchid flower is considered a 
complex organ, it separates the family from all those that might 
be compared with it—it stands quite alone. Besides, its degree of 
complexity is not fixed,as we have seen that Endlicher considers 
some of the “natura stylina” as entering into its composition. 
A most unphilosophie view has been taken of the various ex- 
erescences and lobes of the column and labellum, showing how 
the weeds of fantastic morphology will grow in the absence of 
guiding principles. 
Writers like R. Brown and Darwin, who felt that simple 
fancies were insufficient in a matter of this importance, have 
thought that the distribution of the vascular cords in the axis at 
various heights would, if not decide the question, at least bring it 
near its solution. The result of their investigation has been 
favourable to the idea that the column consists of seven, and the 
labellum of three originally distinct organs. 
The production and multiplication of vascular cords and their 
distribution belongs, however, to quite a different class of phe- 
nomena, and has only an indirect relation to what I should call 
morphologic tendencies or impulses. Like dehiscence, disartieu- 
lation, production of pollen, ovules, nectar, &c., it belongs to 
physiologic activity. Darwin accounts for the one by the genetic 
relation which exists between different beings and organs: for the 
other by adaptation, itself again consequent on natural selection, 
often giving by this happy idea the death-blow to the sterile and 
unhealthy principle of final causes. To persons who have dis- 
sected much, it must be evident that the transition of vascular 
cords into a given organ depends on their number principally, and 
